Regular communications with prospects and customers is very important and most companies use weekly or monthly newsletters to create brand awareness. This creates an atmosphere where prospects are more likely to become customers, and customers are more comfortable with their relationship with you. The newsletter should provide useful information (the free item) and build relationships where the recipients get to know, like and trust you.
One of the issues with newsletters is that everyone gets the same newsletter at the same time, which denotes the need for timely information. Also, what do you do with older newsletters? Most often the older newsletters are archived on a website for later access, but if the news based on current events, it may eventually become irrelevant information.
Ideally, a newsletter would provide timeless information so that the information provided is always relevant. In this case, old newsletters posted on your website become content that becomes a valuable asset to retaining website visitors and getting them interested in your products and services. Also, allowing readers to comment on your newsletters engages them in the conversation and adds to your website’s viability as a trusted source of relevant content on the web.
Although some people still use paper newsletters, this delivery method is rarely used anymore, and almost all are currently delivered by email. One of the trends we have noticed over the years is that newsletters with a lot of information and images tend to get shelved for later reading, whereas a short message (announcement) with a link back to a web page that contains the full newsletter gets read. If your subscribers don’t have time to click on the link and read the newsletter, they will shelve this too, but they will have read your short message.
Another benefit is that as the main newsletter is located on your website, you can make corrections and updates as needed, so that if the reader bookmarks the newsletter and comes back later to read it, they will always have the latest version. If you send it in an email and it has data that you change later, it stays in peoples email system with outdated information.
The announcement approach gets subscribers in the habit of reading your emails instead of shelving them, and is a powerful approach to newsletters. Also, if you organize your newsletters online onto a single content page connected to a searchable database with your older newsletters, recipients can simply bookmark that one page and when they get time, go back and catch up on your announcements and newsletters. You can also set up each newsletter as a content page on your blog and use social media marketing to build interest in the all the blog content. Your content is your greatest asset on the web. Don’t waste it by pushing it into people’s email systems. Instead, use your newsletters to generate extra traffic to your core website or blog as visitors come back time and time again to search for useful information.
From Teo's book:
Social Media Marketing and Syndication
The Evolution of Advertising
Copyright 2009 Grace Lee International Publishing
All rights reserved
Edition 1.0 eBook
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(c) 2009 by Teo Graca
Last Updated Jul 4, 2010
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